Asturias Pictures

15 October 2007

Asturias: 3 Days This Time!

I'm finally back to school and real life and hopefully will begin blogging again with some regularity! Apologies for the very long absence. Particularly to Anna Xu, a wonderful and devoted reader.

A few weeks before our scheduled weeklong break from classes, my friends here began making travel plans. A few were headed to Prague, a few to Rome. Both places sounded great to me, but a part of me wanted to see more of Spain--a country that, besides Granada, I´d seen none of.

The day that I was trying to decide where to go, fate intervened in the form of three e-mails. One was from my friend Anna, who had found old outdoors magazines in a store and wanted to know if I was interested in spending the break hiking. One was from my friend Allison, who wanted to know if that week would be a good time for her to come and visit. And the last one was from my new Harvard English Department advisor, introducing himself and suggesting that if I have any free time I make it up north to Cangas de Onis--a beautiful mountain town, he said, that would be especially nice in autumn.

Plans came together after that, and in what felt like no time at all I found myself, Anna and Allison in a bus from Madrid to Oviedo. To clarify geographically, Asturias is a region in the north of Spain, Oviedo is the region´s biggest city, and "the Picos de Europa" is a mountain range through several northern regions including Asturias. We took my advisor´s suggestion and decided to hike out of Cangas de Onis, an access town that according to our guidebooks is famous for fabada (bean stew), siedra (hard apple cider), and its many varieties of queso de cabrales (goat cheese). The lush and quiet mountain town, whose trees were all just beginning to turn orange, yellow, and brown, exceeded expectations; I can´t imagine a more peaceful place to spend a few days.

Thanks to Allison, who had brought from the States a "walking in Spain" book, we found great-looking route that started and ended at Lago de Ercina, which is a taxi drive away from Cangas. We packed up our backpacks with fleeces, cheese, and nuts, left our suitcases with the nice old ladies at the tourist office, and hit the trail!

I took detailed notes of the trip, which I don´t have with me here at the school computer lab (where I´m writing from between classes), so I´ll finish this entry later today or tomorrow morning from the residencia. Hasta luego!

...

Our first day, we hiked 17km—from Lago de Ercina to Caín. Our day began in town, where we did last-minute grocery shopping and found a place to leave our suitcases (that is, with the very friendly old ladies at the Tourist Office). We caught a taxi to Lago de Ercina, and passed Covadonga, with its stunning salmon-colored stone church. We watched out of the taxi’s windows as we climbed up the mountainside and the lush, vermonty green landscape gave way to craggy mountains.

Lago de Ercina is a plush, boggy lake plopped pretty much dead center in the middle of these craggy mountains. From the trail head there, we ascended a very muddy slope to the tinny serenade of cowbells. Ankle-deep in mud that (not surprisingly) smelled strongly of cow, I asked myself the question that always comes up at least once during a backpacking trip: why the heck did I decide to do this again?

The good news is that when we reached the hilltop and Refugio Vega de Aria, the trail (and our shoes) dried out. A shepard stopped to point us in the right direction, and after a brief lunch of raisins and cheese, we carried on. Trails in the Picos have a different marking system than those in California's Sierra Nevadas—instead of looking for “ducks” or “cairns,” we looked for white and yellow paint dots. At times, particularly in rocky landscapes, this is a much better system than cairns. At times, particularly in landscapes with lots of small yellow flowers, it is not.

After a steep, shale-y descent down the other side of the hill that we’d just walked up, we reached the route from Poncebos to Cain—one of the flat-out coolest trails I’ve ever hiked. The sendero is of decompressed granite, and is easy to walk on. For a while, it runs along the Garganta del Cares, an impressive gorge. To clarify. When I say “runs along,” I mean in 1946 Spanish workers dynamited a path into one side of the vertical cliff that extends up from the river seemingly indefinitely. The result is a semi-circular tunnel (that at times actually becomes a series of tubular caves) carved into an otherwise steep rock face. This would not be a place to misstep; at times, the cliff curves away at a negative slope from the trail and the river is at least a hundred feet below. When the trail turns into tunnel-caves, at points windows are carved into the rock wall and we could see waterfalls cascading down over us. I’ll try to include a picture, because words really can’t describe how fun this path was!

We reached Cain, a small mountain town, around 7pm, and spent the night there. We woke up at 9am (early, Spanish time) and began our second day hike to Vega de Uriellu!

...

The day began with an hour-long backtrack along the Poncebos trail. This trail is, according to our guidebook, the single best day hike in Spain and if any of you are ever in the Picos and seeking a gorgeous (no pun intended) and fairly easy walk, I'd suggest here. There are stone houses built up against the cliff walls, and the aqueduct mentioned above runs the whole length of the trail.

We reached Poncebos and the underground funicular at about 10:30 in the morning. By taking the 7-minute funicular, we avoided a strenuous 4.5 km ascent--a good call, in my opinion. We walked, blinking, out of the dark funicular into bright sunlight and a green, almost Hawaiian-looking landscape. We'd reached Bulnes La Villa, a small town with one cafe inaccessible by road.

From Bulnes, we began another steep (and muddy, and hot) ascent through a path flanked by high ferns and shaded by low-hanging tree branches. We stopped at the pool below a small and freezing-cold waterfall to shed layers and swim. What struck me most about this leg of our hike was how radically different it was in landscape and flora from our hike the day before. The path really looked tropical!

As we hiked higher, however, the path again dried out and the "forest" thinned. Soon, we were hiking through fields of knee-high orange ferns, and passing through pastures where cows and goats grazed. When we finally reached the top of this hill, we dropped our backpacks and stared wide-eyed at the view; a sweeping valley first, and then a distant hill on top of which perched a small hamlet, complete with church spire. For any of you who grew up watching Beauty and the Beast, this (as far as I could tell) was the hill that Belle runs to behind her house.

Allured by the town, we headed down the hill, through fields of (you guessed it) cows and goats. When we reached the road, we stopped and asked a shepard for directions. He laid our map down on the hood of his car, turned his binoculars upside-down to read the small font, and pursed his lips. "Alli," he said, and pointed--back in the direction that we had come from.

Yep, this was Lost Incident #1. The good that came out of our half-hour, out-of-the-way trek, however, was that the shepard also showed us a freshwater spring from which we could refill our water bottles. An hour of huffing and puffing back up the hill, we'd arrived where we'd started, and were ready to continue along the trail.

The rest of the day was--a climb. We passed a few refugios, a donkey carrying bundles, two German mountain bikers, and some gazelles, and (finally) out of the fog loomed Vega de Urriellu. We pushed open the stone building's heavy door, checked in with the innkeepers, and plodded up the metal stairs to the second floor and its six very cozy rooms. The rooms' walls were lined with bunk beds and in the deep windowsills were stacked thick felt blankets. Cold, we curled up with two blankets each and awaited dinner. And that's where I'll continue, when I continue!

9 October 2007

Hey all!

The weeklong vacation that separated my September language class from my October literature classes just ended--and so here I am, back in Granada. Here´s where I´ve been during the last week:

Toledo
Segovia
Madrid (2 nights)
Oviedo-Cangas de Onis-the Picos de Europa (5 nights)
On the bus back to Granada (1 long night)

My first three days of travel were organized by Arcadia, the program that I´m here in Spain with. The next week of travel I planned with two friends.

Seeing as I´m so far behind on blogging, I´m not going to try to tackle this chronologically but rather by location. This seems like it will make sorting out my memories a bit easier. With that said, I´m going to post this and start writing about Asturias!

26 September 2007

It's strange to think that I've almost been here a month. The volume of this blog has significantly decreased--but I'm hoping to catch up over the next week or so, when I'll be traveling in Toledo, Segovia, Madrid, and Asturias (northern Spain). We've got a week off before classes start up again and I'm hoping to make the most of it, both in terms of travel and blogging!

Also, I actually have been writing--just not on the blog. I'm going to be a columnist for the Harvard Crimson this semester and have been devoting a bit of time to newspaper-article researching and writing. The column isn't up yet, but will be soon. If you're interested you can read my past and future articles (all opinion pieces) online at http://www.thecrimson.com/writer.aspx?ID=1202985. Just to warn you, I wrote two feminist-y pieces last year that got some readers riled up and so you may run into a handful of angry comments. (If you really like me, you can Google me and see what happens. There's a girl out there who's written an entire web page rebutting my two articles; while I'm flattered and glad to spark discussion, I'm not sure that the articles themselves merit quite so much analysis!)

Anyway, more on Granada to come. I have good stories to share, but my language class' final exam is tomorrow and tonight I need to stop procrastinating (by writing blog posts) and review our grammar. Hasta luego!

16 September 2007

Hola todos! Sorry for the hiatus from posting. I spent last week getting over culture shock--I was annoyed by Siesta, by all of the graffiti here, and by the lack of vegetable dishes anywhere. After a few days of frustration, though, I got over it and had a great weekend. Which brings me to this blog post...

Things really began on Thursday night, when a group of us from Arcadia (the program that I'm studying abroad with) decided to check out a local bar named Copa Real. We walked in, and it was fantastic: there was Spanish music playing, there was only Spanish being spoken, and the bartender's name was Jesus. After several nights of tapas bars that played The Killers and Shakira, it was nice to go somewhere that felt local. After an hour or two of drinking and dancing, we continued on to a nearby Kabob King (the Moorish fast food influence here) for schwarmas, baklava, and easy conversation till the early hours of the morning.

I took Friday easy--attended class and went to the Post Office, but did little else. After Thursday night, I wanted to stay in, and so my residencia-mate Ali and my friends Noemi and Jason gathered in Ali's room for homemade tinto de verano. (Red wine + Fanta limon = delicious.) They headed out to a botellon, or the Spanish version of a tailgate party minus the sporting event, around one a.m.; I opted for a quieter night of reading and writing.

Saturday I woke up and met the group at 11a.m. for a tour of the Alibaicin. The Albaicin is the ancient Moorish part of Granada, and it is beautiful. I'd gotten so used to the modern, commercial area surrounding Gran Via de Colon, the street that I walk down every day, that I'd forgotten there's a whole part of the city that looks, well, Spanish. The buildings were white and tumbly, with tile roofs. The hill faced the Alhambra and offered views from nearly every plaza. Tucked between the old houses were churches, fountains, and gardens. There were even the ruins of a Spanish bath complex, which as students we were allowed to walk through for free. We explored the hill for nearly an hour before descending, and I'm definitely going to return some afternoon this week and read in one of the high-up plazas.

Saturday night my friend Lauren and I decided to try out a tapas bar that's rather far away from the city's commercial center, but near to our residencia. I walk by it everyday and, despite not looking like much from the outside, is usually crowded. We sat down at the bar and ordered vino tinto and chorizo en vino--both our tapas and our racciones were large and delicious. (A good find!) After we finished eating, we ran into three other girls from Arcadia who were on their way to a flamenco show in a cave... we tagged along, and inadvertently arrived at my favorite thing that I've seen so far in Granada.

Flamenco is amazing. It combines Andulusian, Islamic, and Gypsy cultures (or so says the internet) and goes something like this. In a dimly-lit cave, a man sits on the right of a small stage in a wooden chair, playing a guitar. A strong, masculine-looking woman with flowers in her hair sits next to him, singing mournfully but with determination, punctuating each wail with a clap of her hands or a stomp of her feet. On the stage, a woman with curly black hair pulled back tautly dances--her steps are abrupt and angry, and her expression and hands add nuance to what her feet are trying to say. The whole experience is passionate and mesmerizing. Words really fail to capture it.

From the Flamenco cave, we went to a Salsa bar, where a few locals took pity on us and tried to show us basic steps. After an embarrassing hour or so, we gave up and taxi-ed it home.

Today I had an "intercambio" (language exchange) scheduled with a guy named Antonio. It was fun; we discussed American music and movies, Spanish politics, and why Spanish guys are so frustratingly machisto. (I'm sick to death of the catcalls here; after getting groped a few times, I've become a very unfriendly person. I curse at overly-forward Spanish men in English and trust that they get the gist of what I'm saying. Most of the time they seem to, or at least they back off.) But anyways, Antonio, who was not too sketchy, gave me a ride home on his Vespa! Now I understand that this is a very stereotypical Spanish-guy thing to do, but still: I got to ride on a Vespa! Now I'm back in my dorm, frustrated that everywhere is closed on Sundays and eating a dinner of sliced bread and (the Spanish margarine called) Tulipan.

This week ought to be fun. My plans are: learn some music, visit the herb market, and make it into the Sierra Nevada for an afternoon of hiking with Noe. I feel like I'm finally settling into a life here. Yay!

Costa Tropical Pictures

My roommates: Ali, Danielle, (Me!), Sarah and Lauren.

8 September 2007

Everyone should consider moving to Spain. Here are three good reasons:

1. Granada’s sense of time and, say, Boston’s are entirely different. The day here starts at 9am (at the earliest) and ends at 2,3,4am. This means that breakfast is at 11am, siesta from 2-5pm, and dinner beginning at 9 or 10pm (and lasting until the bars close). It also means that the day revolves around food and conversation: gossip over cafe con leche, banter and bocadillos, life stories with churros con chocolate, and flirting between sips of vino de verano.

2. Weather and environment. Since we've arrived, it's been 80-90 degrees F every day. The air is dry: I literally have not seen a cloud. Today we took a bus to the Costa Tropical, rock-jumped into the Mediterranean, basked in the sun, and communally decided that study abroad was a very good choice. Should you be more of a mountain than beach person (like me!), there is also Europe's second-highest mountain range and southernmost ski resort within a 10 minute bus ride away.

3. History and stuff. Way back in the day, there was an Ibero-Celtic settlement here (or so says Wikipedia), and the Phoenicians, Carthagenians and Greeks all dropped by to say hi. A succession of people lived here--and then from 1228 to 1492 it was the capital for the Muslim Nasrid Dynasty. In 1492, the Catholic rulers Isabella and Ferdinand took over. All this adds up to a heck of a lot of interesting art and architecture.

So, yeah. Come!

Granada Pictures

The climate here makes me really, really happy!

3 September 2007 (and before...)

From 31 August 2007, when I had no internet:

Hola de Granada! I’ve finally reached my “final” destination—that is, I’ll call Granada home for the next four months. I don’t think I could have picked a better spot.

I woke up this morning a bit frazzled after a bad day of travel yesterday (I missed my flight and had to reschedule), but after a breakfast of café con leche, delicious fresh fruit, and dried ham I was more than ready to hit the streets.

Which I proceeded to do—via bus tour. It’s touristy, and cheesy, and yeah, the double-decker bus was painted red and purple, and my fellow passengers were Europeans wearing designer sunglasses and half-unbuttoned shirts… but Granada is a big city, and I wanted to get myself oriented!

Which brings me to: I love it here. It’s arid and warm, and the soil is red. Granada, which is a much larger city than I expected, is surrounded by fields of olive trees and of lower-lying crops. Besides the multi-story modern structures, most buildings are white and terra-cotta colored, with terra-cotta tile roofs. The city is hilly, and the residential buildings seem to tumble over one another, as though they’re all racing to get down into the lower-lying heart of the city.

It’s cleaner than Beijing, but dirtier than Paris, which makes me feel comfortable here! There’s graffiti and cacti, and most pedestrians wear sexy but casual clothing. (The ubiquity of sunglasses and spaghetti-strap tops takes me right back to California in the summer.) The food seems, to put it simply, good; wine, olive, ice cream, and pastry shops line the sidewalks.

I’ll get back to my bus tour. It wound through streets just outside the heart of the city, first taking us up to see the entrance to La Alhambra and then bringing us back down the hill to a modern, slightly less picturesque part of the city—home to the university where I’ll be studying. Like any good bus tour, it included audio narration, and I learned that there’s a local legend about a girl who lived in the Sierra Nevada mountains and was very beautiful but for that she had goat’s feet, and also that the city has a rich history of legends of “sultans and princesses.” Which, as someone who liked Disney’s “Aladdin” a lot as a small child, made me very happy.

When the tour dropped me back off downtown, I footed it up into the Albaicin, the Islamic market district. I bought an Horchata (a drink that I love—it’s milky and tastes of Almond) from a street vendor, and when he chatted with me and then kissed me goodbye on both cheeks I was half enchanted and half terrified! I kind of ran away.

My biggest challenge here, I think, is going to be language. I keep slipping into Chinese when I try to speak—or just making stupid, stupid mistakes. Spanish is beautiful, but it’s so much like French and English that I don’t even know how to begin studying: there are no characters to drill, which is what I’d start with when drilling Chinese all summer! I don’t think that we have a language pledge here, but I’m still going to try to speak Spanish as much as I can and not “cheat” by surviving in English, even though that seems like it would be easy here.

Tonight I’m going to a little Tapas bar that I found down the street. Tomorrow, my American classmates arrive and our program begins! I can’t believe that I get to live here for four months. I feel so lucky!

Why I Love Paris

I am absolutely enamored with the city right now. Here's why:

I woke up this morning at just past six and I wanted to walk along the Seine. The sun was up high enough that the tops of the buildings were white-gold but the doorways and the sidewalks were all still gray. When I reached the river the light reflected off of the water so brightly that I couldn’t look at it directly, so I didn’t, and instead I looked at the leaves of the trees that grow in a perfectly straight row along the bank and I tried to pretend that I was out in the country somewhere and it wasn’t difficult. I walked in the direction of Notre-Dame, and on the left side of the riverbank the light filtered through the leaves and wasn’t too glaring.

When I reached Tuilleries I first walked passed it but then I turned around and waited at the crosswalk to cross the street. A man with a camera said something to me in French but I didn’t understand and so I ignored him. I crossed the street and there was a blue door at street level that looked as though it wasn’t supposed to be open but it was. I walked through it and up the stairs and around the bushes and there was Rodin’s The Kiss. Since nobody was there I put my hands on top of first the woman’s hands and then the man’s hands and tried to imagine how Rodin must have felt when his hands were on top of theirs too.

I walked all the way down to the Notre-Dame and the Ile St. Louis and then I turned left onto a sidestreet and walked up to the Centre Georges-Pompidou. I sat on a bench next to a fountain for awhile and read my book, and then I took the metro back to this hotel.

I love Paris because you can stumble upon Rodin's The Kiss. I love Paris because when it's one o'clock and you're hungry and you go to a little restaurant just around the corner the woman who's working there smiles and brings you half a carafe of good white wine. I love Paris because she chats with you and when you finish your salade and order a nutella crepe she nods approvingly (What kind of a lunch is a salade anyway?).

Tomorrow my friend Anna arrives, and soon we'll take the train together to Madrid. Updates to come!

25 August 2007

I woke up this morning in Paris. It is my first day here and so actually I woke up very early this morning in Paris, before the sky had even turned gray, and long before the Boulangeries and Patisseries began opening their doors.

I found this out when, just after seven, I slipped out the front door of the Hotel Londres-Eiffel. The sky had turned a pale blue and after all I was in Paris! so I didn't want to sit in my hotel room any longer.

I turned left off of Rue Saint-Dominique onto Avenue Bosquet, and walked the few blocks that it took to reach the Seine. After China, and particularly at seven on a Saturday morning, France is quiet and clean. I walked along the Seine, watching the sun rise over the marble bridges and buildings, admiring how well public statues have been preserved. Although China is 4,000 years old, there are few places where you see evidence of it; here, on the other hand, history is everywhere. The sky turned a golden pink and I watched the boatmen throw off loops of the rope that tethered their boats to the shore overnight.

By the time that I reached the Champs-Elysees, I was hungry. I began looking for a cafe, bistro--anywhere where I could have un tas de cafe et un croissant--but no luck. I kept walking. Finally, back down by the Seine, I found a small restaurant that had just opened and settled in at one of its window tables with my coffee, croissant, and Hemingway's "A Moveable Feast" (the perfect Paris book). It's France, and so of course the milk was hot and the croissant buttery. I happily lingered over my chapters.

I rode the subway to do some shopping (I needed walking shoes and more reading material!) and then made my way back home. My first-day impression of Paris, though, couldn't be better. Maybe it's just being back in the West, but I feel like I've come home! Everyone--from the salesclerk at the Puma shoe store to the waiter at breakfast to strangers in the subway--is friendly. My French is bad but more comes back to me by the hour: I practiced the line "I spent the summer in China, so speaking French right now is difficult" on my walk downtown and it worked wonders. I really can't get over how nice everyone is here: the salesclerk chatted with me about California, Boston, and American movies and one guy even walked me quite a ways to the right subway line when I was lost. Despite being here by myself, I haven't felt a bit lonely today.

Now I'm off to a corner bistro for lunch. I'm hoping for a glass of white wine and a salade nicoise... I love this country...

24 August 2007

So that was a post because last week I didn't have my laptop with me; now I thought I'd check in to say that I'm in Paris! It's surreal to think that I'm half-a-world away from where I woke up this morning, but I'm thankful to be back in a land of toilet paper in public places, drinkable tap water, and uncensored internet. I can (finally) read my own blog!

24 August 2007

你好 everyone! I will now attempt to sum up four very eventful days in Shanghai in one short blog entry.

Last Saturday night a Harvard friend (Spring), an HBA friend (Bailu) and I took the overnight train from Beijing to Shanghai. We had soft seats—so the 12-hour train ride was a lot like my flight from California to Beijing, but with more legroom. I’ve heard great stories from other HBA-ers about making Chinese friends on the train, but didn’t have this experience; all I found out about my neighbor during the entire ride was that she was from Singapore!

We arrived in Shanghai early in the morning and, after recovering from the blast of heat that met us when we stepped off of the train, took the subway to a stop near our hostel. We stayed at “Le Tour Youth Hostel,” and although it is rather far from downtown Shanghai, I would highly recommend it to any future travelers. The staff was friendly and the bathrooms were clean—in China, these aren’t things to be taken lightly! We checked in, ditched our backpacks, and headed out into the city.

Our first afternoon we planned to meet up with some HBA Yalies for Dim Sum and Xiao Long Bao (“Little Dragon Dumplings”—a Shanghai specialty). We all made it to People’s Park, and then our communication lines went down: cell phones ran out of money and we, being students in our last week of travel, didn’t want to buy more minutes. We finally met by The Lotus Pond—but the half hour of wandering the park looking for our friends actually proved surprisingly fun. The park was full of Chinese eager to practice their English, and nearly every person who passed us greeted us with, “Hah-loo. Vwhat country you from?”

Sometimes we ignore these calls, but in the park they were so ubiquitous that this strategy proved impossible. We finally began talking with the locals—and quickly, a crowd formed. The would-be English speakers hung on our every (English) word; it felt strange being a sort of commodity, but also felt like a good diplomatic opportunity. I tried to be friendly and to pepper conversation with lines from our textbook like, “I hope that America and China’s relations continue to improve,” or “I’m really impressed with China’s modernization and progress,” which, in addition to actually being true, never fail to elicit happy smiles from a native crowd.

Our Xiao Long Bao were good, but not what they’d been talked up to be. Call me provincial, but I prefer Beijing’s good ‘ole jiaozi.

Late that afternoon, we met up with Wen Jun and his older brother Grant (who stayed with us at Le Tour). The five of us made our way to the European side of the Bund, Shanghai’s riverfront, where we ate dinner at a restaurant called “Shanghai Grandmother’s Restaurant” (the name spoke to us). Afterwards, we got drinks at a bar called Atanu that had mediocre drinks but made up for it with a breathtaking view of the other side of the river—of Shanghai’s modern skyline. We stayed past eleven, when the city turns off most lights, and watched as the skyscraper’s electric blues and reds flickered in the river’s water, then went out.

Much in need of post-HBA relaxation, us three girls spent most of the next day reading at the Yu Gardens. We claimed a pondside pavilion for ourselves, and sat there eating watermelon ice and lackadaisically flipping pages as the sun sank low over the traditional-Chinese-style rooftops. In the evening, we headed to the other side of the Bund for dinner with the Yalies.

We ate at a small restaurant a few blocks back from the waterfront. At the time, dinner seemed great—looking back on it, not so much. Soon after getting home that night, my stomach began to rumble, and by the time that we went to bed, I was getting waves of sharp cramps. This isn’t unheard of in China, and so I crossed my fingers that something just wasn’t sitting right and fell asleep.

Unfortunately, I woke up two hours later sweating and with gripping stomach pain. After one more interminable hour in bed, and a perhaps even longer hour sick to my stomach, I woke up my friends and asked them to find a Western hospital. In China, food poisoning is sometimes serious and sometimes not—all I knew was that I couldn’t stop vomiting, and that I wasn’t taking any chances.

A decidedly uncomfortable taxi ride later, I found myself in an (empty) Western hospital talking to a doctor from San Diego. I had already explained my situation to the nurse: “不舒服，拉肚子，土好几次…” but repeated it all to the doctor as well. He pressed a stethoscope to my stomach, listened for a few minutes, told me that I needed an anti-nausea medicine so that I could keep water down, and promptly gave me a shot.

I spent the whole day (and that night) in bed. Luckily, in our hostel this meant a clean bunk, with white, freshly-pressed sheets and the faintest smell of pine. I would wake from time to time and try to read a few pages of my book—but usually I just fell asleep again. I tried to walk to dinner with my friends, but didn’t even make it through the “liang cai” (the Chinese version of soup-and-salad) before my insides gripped up again and I headed back home.

Luckily, I woke up in the morning feeling okay (so long as I avoided all smells and the sight of any Chinese food)! We decided on two easy, indoor activities: a visit to Sun Yat-Sen’s (He was a very important Chinese political leader) former residence and then a trip to the Shanghai Art Museum. The Shanghai Art Museum is definitely worth a visit—it was small, but had two beautiful exhibitions of photography. We wandered the galleries; the images of Chinese rural life reminded us of our weeks of social study in Henan and (for Bailu) Shanxi.

We took an overnight sleeper train back to Beijing. Let me for a moment extol the virtues of the sleeper car. Particularly after airplane and soft-seat travel, nothing really compares to the luxury of having about three-by-seven cushioned and pillowed square feet all to yourself. Chinese trains even play soothing music in the cars, which muffles neighbors’ conversation and helps you to relax. On top of the small table between the two bunks, there is even a small plastic vase holding a small plastic flower. It’s terribly civilized. I love sleeper cars.

Spring, Bailu and I had bought dinner at a grocery store on our way to the station, and so the three of us crashed on Spring’s lower bunk and chatted about our respective China experiences. When the other passengers started to snooze off, we retired to our respective bunks and slept soundly until the morning.

16 August 2007

Thoughts about China

I have one day left of HBA and it's causing me to reflect on my experience here--to try to sum up what I actually think about China. So here are a few more musings...

First:
My friend Ke Ren was taking a test and wrote (in Chinese) a sentence that began, "Taiwan is a country that..." The teachers correcting the test circled "country," penned in a large, red question mark and wrote, "地方. (Place.) Better." Ah, China!

And then on a more serious note:
Yesterday I went to a lunch with James McGregor, a (the internet says) "journalist-turned-businessman and former chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in China." He spoke frankly and somewhat critically about China--and sitting at lunch with him and our teachers, I wondered first if they understood what he was saying (in colloquial English) and then if they were offended. Today, I asked Wang Laoshi, the head of our third-year program, what she'd thought of the lunch. We had an hour-long discussion about the U.S. and China's understanding of each other.

I thought that Wang Laoshi's most interesting point was that U.S. citizens have one common value: they believe that everyone should have his own opinion. In this, they all have the same opinion. Chinese also have one common value: they believe that everyone should have the same opinion, namely, that every individual should prioritize China's economic development and progress. The question then, boils down to, which opinion is better? Being an American, I jump to the first: everyone should have his own opinion! But then I ask myself: is this really better? Or is it, for the most part, energy-wasting and prideful posturing? Being here in China I've come to believe that some aspects of Chinese society are actually better than American society. Every individual here "重视," or prioritizes, family. Grandparents help raise grandchildren. Children look after elderly parents--and not with resentment but with love and affection. And although you might not notice at the marketplace, where haggling seems every-man-for-himself, citizens are almost all willing to put country and family before their own well-being.

I asked Wang Laoshi, "What about women's rights here?"--a pet issue of my own--and she said that, although traditional culture does call for men earning money and women doing most of the housework, as more and more women enter the work force more and more men are washing dishes. She told me that she didn't think that the old way of thinking was so much a manifestation of sexism as a practical division of labor (Before modern contraceptives, a lot of women would spend time at home having and raising children out of necessity; it made sense for them to keep the place clean too). When women work, men still believe in dividing the work (she said) fifty-fifty: and if this means that they babysit and vacuum, then so be it. Wang Laoshi told me that she thought that Chinese husbands had great respect for their wives; from what I've seen firsthand, this seems true.

And Democracy? She said that a two-party system wastes a lot of time squabbling over unimportant issues like Bill Clinton's "di san zhe" (other woman). She asked why China would want a government that worried about gay marriage to the detriment of education policy. In a one-party system, the government really focuses big issues (namely, the economy) that will affect everyone.

Wang Laoshi is a teacher who I greatly respect, and whose understanding of American culture is deep: she has lived in Boston and taught at Harvard, and she has a foreign (we think American but aren't sure!) boyfriend. She's sharp, witty and frank. I'm not sure whether or not I support the Chinese way of looking at things, but it's interesting to at least think about issues from a not-U.S. perspective. I guess I've got a week more to really take advantage of that!

13 August 2007

This post is actually a few days old but I had to run it by a friend or two before I posted. So... voila!

It’s my last weekend in Beijing! Today, a friend and I decided to spend the afternoon shopping at Wu Dao Kou. Wu Dao Kou (a well-known Beijing shopping area) is close to our school—less than a ten-minute walk away—and until today I’d hardly explored it at all! It turns out, besides a subway stop, Wu Dao Ku has a lot of clothing stores (ranging from very cheap to mid-range), a few restaurants, a few bars, a grocery store, and several electronics stores. Ting Ting and I knew our destination: we headed straight to the clothing stores.

(This blog post has a PG-13/possibly way-too-much-information rating. Read on at your own risk.)

We had little success at most of the clothing stores—that is, until we stumbled into a Chinese lingerie shop.

For those of you who don’t know, I am not a particularly busty chica. You might compare my chest to, say, a tabletop. My bra-shopping history goes something like this:

(I walk into Victoria’s Secret.)

Saleswoman: “Hi, can I help you?”

Me: “Yes, do you have any bras in (my bra size)?”

Saleswoman: “Hmm, let’s see…” (She pulls out a plain, white, akin-to-training bra.) “We do have this one.”

Me: “Anything else?”

Saleswoman: “I’m sorry, they just don’t come that small.”

Anyway, I was expecting the same experience here in China. But then I realized: the typical Chinese woman is, well, a lot closer to my size! And so when I asked what my options were, the saleswoman pulled about fifteen bras off the wall and dragged me into a dressing room. This was another aspect of the experience that I wasn’t expecting: she didn’t wait outside. Instead, she walked behind me into the room, told me to take off my shirt and stood there waiting. Once I was topless, she helped me into a bra and (rather invasively, but hey, it’s China…) started pulling at it until it sat right.

“See?” she said in Chinese. “This bra will make you look much sexier.” And sure enough: the bra fit, was comfortable, was nicely designed and—shockingly!—made me look like I have cleavage. My friend, whose build is a lot like mine, was having a similar experience in the next dressing room over: “Ah!” she squealed in English, “These Chinese bras are amazing!”

I’d have to agree. So when I get back to the states, if you notice an extra spring in my step, you'll know: I'm wearing really fantastic underwear.

7 August 2007

Yesterday’s weather was, as we say here in Beijing, “feng kuang” (which in my opinion sounds much more like ‘crazy’ than ‘crazy’). It started raining at about two in the afternoon—and by the time that we left the building that our classrooms are in at three, the water in the road was running like a river. The walk back to our dorm usually takes less than five minutes; yesterday, we waded through a knee-deep, mucky lake for at least fifteen. We (my classmates and I) walked into the lobby soaked and laughing hard—we’d long since given up fighting the elements. After warm showers and dry clothes, our hotel was downright cozy, and we gathered in the second-floor café to surf the web and study.

Academically, HBA is getting pretty political. Our last few chapters have dealt with issues like Taiwan, human rights, direct elections/democracy, currency exchange, and Chinese media. Our lecture classes give us a pretty clear idea of the Chinese view of things, which we then respond to in “Dui Hua Ke” (an hour during which one teacher and two students discuss the day’s lesson) and “Dan Ban Ke” (an hour with a teacher one-on-one). The more that we talk about these topics, the more that I realize how big China and the U.S.’s ideological differences are.

Today, for example, in Dui Hua Ke our teacher asked me (and my friend Hao Yuan) if we thought that the government should control the media. “No,” I replied, trying to be polite. “In America, our constitution gives us freedom of speech and so that would be illegal.” We explained how in America the media acts as a sort of fourth, regulatory branch of government. We said that we thought that people need to know as much as possible what is going on in their country. We told her that the media can be an important tool for politicians—can tell them what citizens are concerned about. “What do you think?” we asked her.

Without hesitation, she replied, “Oh, I think that the government must control the media. Otherwise, society will become too unstable.” We asked her to explain, and she told us that from a Chinese point of view, if citizens know that, say, one region wants independence, then they might support this region rather than the government, and that might lead to regional violence that could tear China apart, etc. etc. It’s better for everyone, she said, if the government reports “Hao Xiaoxi” (Good/Happy News) and if the economy keeps running smoothly.

We didn’t want to offend her, and figured it’d be best to end the conversation there.

Longqing Gorge Pictures

5 August 2007

Cultural Enrichment: Longqing Gorge

First, a quick summary from http://www.chinavista.com/travel/longqingxia/main.html. I feel like it gives a good introduction.

"The Longqing Gorge Natural Scenic Area is located 10 kilometers northeast of the county seat of Yanqing. Known as 'Lesser Lijiang river outside the Great wall' and 'The Small Three gorges of China,' it is one of Beijing's top 16 tourist sites. Longqing Gorge covers an area of 119 square kilometers. The main scenic spots include the largest dam in Northern China-a concrete dam more than 70 meters high. Here tourists can see waterfalls in summer and icefalls in winter.

Boating on the lake.

The 7-kilometer tourist boat scenic area has pleasant scenery. The river is flanked by cliffs, and along the river tourists can enjoy more than 30 spectacles such as the stone screen on water and ax-split mountain. Longqing gorge combines the delicateness of the south and the boldness of the north.

Tourists can tour the scenic area in a day. In the morning, tourists arrive at the mouth of the gorge by bus. They walk along the gorge for 20 minutes to the dam, where they can take the 258-meter elevator to the top of the dam. The elevator was built in 1996. Since it is shaped like a dragon, it is named the 'Soaring Dragon' Elevator, and it is included in the Guinness Book Of Records for its length."

... yep, that's where I was yesterday. If there's one thing that I've learned about China, it's that you should never expect anything. For example, when told that we were going to "a national park" yesterday I thought, oh, it will probably be something like Yosemite. We'll maybe hike a bit, have a picnic.

Instead, we arrived at the tallest dam in Northern China, walked into the mouth of a huge plastic dragon that "scaled" the dam, and took four or five escalators (Escalators! This is in the middle of the wilderness...) up to a lake. The 风景 (scenery) was breathtaking... tall cliffs plunged into a perfect, green lake. We boarded a boat near the dam and it took us to another dock on the lake, from which we could:

1. climb the cliff and go bungee jumping
2. rent a canoe
3. climb the hill and visit a Buddhist temple
4. zipline across the lake
5. motorboat around
6. eat at any of several restaurants

It was as though California had decided to hand Yosemite over to Six Flags! I was awed by the natural splendor of the gorge, but still can't make up my mind as to whether I support the "plastic dragon" aspect of the place. I mean, it's fun to ride bumper cars down the side of a dam (yep, they had that too!) but it's also at odds with preserving the environment.

I watched a few of my classmates bungee jump, but opted out myself. I did, however, rent a canoe and paddle around. The temple, despite being obviously touristy, was actually one of the prettier ones I've seen. Its courtyard was filled with fluttering multicolored cloth, strung from wall to wall, and from the trees' branches hung low with yellow-and-red ribbons.

All in all, the day was kind of surreal.

If you want to see good pictures of the gorge I'd suggest checking out the web site http://www.kinabaloo.com/lq.html. My explanations feel inadequate!

Gu Gong and Tian Tan Pictures

3 August 2007

Today marks the end of my seventh week here; it’s a bit strange to realize that I’ve only got two weeks of HBA left! Alice Walker writes that time moves slowly but passes quickly—and never has that seemed as true to me as it does here. It’s nice to realize how much I’ve 习惯 –ed (gotten used to) China, but I also feel like there’s so much that I still haven’t seen! I’m going to try to really take advantage of my next three weeks here, see the sights, 等等 (etc.).

Meanwhile, two representative China moments:

In a grocery store…

Me: 可以吃吧？ “Can you eat it?”

(I point to what looks something like a piece of candy.)

Saleswoman: 现代开就吃。 “First unwrap, then eat.”

(Ask a stupid question…)

When you know you’ve been in China for awhile…

Classmate A: 这个米饭没有味道。 “This rice has no flavor!”

Classmate B: 对，喝别的饭馆儿比起来不好。 “Yeah, it’s really not as good as the rice at the other restaurant.”

Following another train of thought, I think I’ve found the Chinese phrase that best describes America: 都可以。This roughly translates as “You can do all” or “All are possible”—though neither of these phases captures 都可以’s concise yet casual tone—and when talking about 美国 I find myself saying it a lot. Our teachers will ask, for example, do people drive cars or ride bicycles to work? 都可以。Do they believe in God or are they atheists? 都可以。Do they support Gong He Dang (the Republican Party) or Ren Min Dang (the Democratic Party)… you get the picture. This strikes a clear contrast with life here, where there’s if not a way that culture and tradition demands (and these rules seem the most rigid), then at least a way that the government “recommends for your benefit.” All I know is, I’m glad that I live in a country where 都可以。

Today I'm headed to the Temple of Heaven. I'll blog about that later!

30 July 2007

Yesterday and today have been really fun.

Yesterday (Sunday), I woke up and soon after headed off to meet my 中国家庭 (Chinese host family). This is a bit of a misnomer, seeing as my "host family" is actually a 25 year old young woman, but my HBA brother and I call her 姐姐 (big sister) and roll with it.

Anyway, our 姐姐 met us at XiZhiMen, a very crowded subway stop, and together we took the subway to a neighborhood near Hou Hai. Together, we wandered the Hu Tongr (small residential alleyways) and eventually ended up at a 北京小吃 restaurant. Bei Jing Xiao Chi, which literally translates as "Beijing small eat," is a little bit like sushi or tapas in that it's a meal made up of lots of one-bite-sized dishes. The restaurant itself was oriented around a center isle that felt like a street market: to the right and left were long bars filled with a variety of dumplings, meats, bugs, and pastries. Our 姐姐 picked out a good assortment and we ate well... my personal favorite was an egg-y dish that seemed like a cross between yogurt and flan. I definitely want to return to this restaurant before I leave Beijing.

Last night, I also watched the movie Ratatouille. It was hen ke ai--that is, very cute. I'd recommend it to anyone who's liked other Pixar films.

Today was good because of tonight; breaking with my sometimes tiring weeknight schedule of studying and more studying, I made plans to go out! An HBA friend, Bai Lu, and I have another Harvard friend who's here in Beijing for the summer working at an environmental design firm. The three of us decided to meet tonight for dinner and to plan a week of post-HBA travel.

We met at, again, a subway stop--this time the YongHeGong one--and, again, wandered the Hu Tongr. We chose a hole-in-the-wall jiaozi restaurant and straight away ordered two wooden plates of jiaozi, which were, as expected, delicious. We followed these jiaozi, which I soaked in vinegar and hot pepper, with roasted and salted peanuts and a plate of noodles. The meal was completely satisfying (and, hey, it covered two parts of the food pyramid!) and in total cost less than a dollar per person. I love this type of restaurant--a 有特点的 Chinese experience (that is, a Chinese experience with its own zing).
　
Our conversation was also great. The plan, as of now, for the end of August is: take the train to Shanghai, spend a few days there sightseeing, continue on to Huang Shang (Yellow Mountain) for a day hike or two--hopefully find lodging on the mountain, return to Beijing, say goodbye to the city, and catch my August 24th flight to Paris (via London). I've heard wonderful things about Shanghai and Huang Shang, so I've got high hopes for the trip!

Okay (sigh). Back to the books...

27 July 2007

你们好!

I woke up this morning a bit groggy (after a late—and fun!—night last night at a Hou Hai bar), and very glad that friends and I had decided not to head to the Gu Gong/Palace Museum/Forbidden City until 10a.m…

We met in the hotel lobby then and took a Hei Che (illegal taxi) to the Gu Gong. As we haggled over the car’s price, I noticed that I’ve been increasingly thinking in kuai, not in dollars. I’ve noticed that in terms of buying power the kuai (in China) and the dollar (in America) are roughly the same—and so in my head, I no longer divide prices by 8. Because of this, I now become irritated when a taxi driver demands 70 instead of 30 kuai, or when a street vendor charges me 8 kuai for a bottle of water. I guess this is just part of acclimatization!

Anyway. To return from that tangent, the Gu Gong was (according to my pamphlet) established on the foundation of the Imperial Palace (aka the Forbidden City). Now, it’s a museum that preserves halls, walls, “courtyard dwellings,” and over 1.5 million imperial treasures. The place is over 1,000,000 square meters large—and feels daunting. Even though, thanks to my map, I knew that we were entering through the “Gate of Heavenly Unity” and then walking toward the “Hall of Central Harmony,” I felt like I was in a maze.

Once we’d familiarized ourselves with the Gu Gong’s layout, we (there were five of us) had a quick conference and decided that we’d most like to see the “Clocks and Watches Gallery.” We’d seen enough blue-and-white vases and plates—this gallery sounded different. Plus, it was close to where we then stood. Upon arriving at the gallery, we discovered that our Gu Gong ticket didn’t cover the cost of entry to the gallery and we’d have to pay an additional 10 kuai to go in. Unsure whether or not it was worth it, we sent in a scout (me)—if the gallery was good, everyone else would follow, and if it was not, we’d split the 10 kuai it cost to get one person in.

Everyone ended up joining me—these clocks and watches were cool! Some were European, some were Chinese, but all were beautiful and intricate works of art. The clocks ranged in size from as small as a silver dollar to as big as a children’s playhouse; in addition to normal clocks, the collection included astronomical clocks, sundials and water clocks. My personal favorites were a clock that was also a tiny elevator, able to travel up and down its own elevator shaft, and a clock that looked like a (jeweled) sunflower. (Koo, I thought of you. Also Xu thank you for reading… getting a comment from you always makes my day!)

We left that exhibit and, eventually, wandered out of the Gu Gong. We’d spent several hours there and were tired. The Museum’s Meridian Gate opens onto Tiananmen Square—so we took pictures in front of Mao’s mausoleum, and then, after a quick lunch at a streetside restaurant, came back home.

What I liked most about the Gu Gong, to be honest, were the English names of all its halls. These are just a few:

- The Hall of Imperial Peace

- The Palace of Earthly Tranquility

- The Hall of Preserving Harmony

- The Pavilion of Literary Profundity

- The Palace of Universal Happiness

If I ever own a house, and name it, I’m pretty sure that I’m going to go with “The Palace of Universal Happiness.” :)

26 July 2007

Hello, I finished!

Harry Potter, that is. I've been spending all of my 课余 (out-of-class) spare time reading... and reading and reading. I won't talk about the plot here, but will say that I loved it. I fully expected for the last installment not to live up to the rest of the series, but now after finishing think that it not only lived up to the first six books but surpassed them--it was just so darn good. (This won't give anything away, but for those of you who have read it, I so love Dobby...)

I've spent this week trying to get back into the academic swing of things. It's rough going back to our 100 vocab words a night, to our daily paragraph memorizations. I think longingly of afternoons spent practicing Gong Fu... and then shake myself out of it and give thanks for warm showers.

My plans for this weekend? A trip into downtown Beijing, and hopefully a meeting with my Chinese "host-family." I thought that I'd been orphaned but got an e-mail from my "mom" yesterday. This Sunday we're planning to get together.

21 July 2007

Okay, I'm not even going to try to conceal my excitement: I bought the last Harry Potter book! This actually turned out to be a very fruitful mission because, in taking a taxi downtown to the bookstore that sold American versions cheapest, I discovered a fantastic bookstore. It also sells DVDs and music--it reminds me of a Borders or Barnes & Noble--and I'm definitely going to return. Meanwhile, I'm avoiding the mass media (and select friends here) for fear that someone will tell me who lives, who dies, or what the deal is with all those horcruxes...

More Henan Pictures

Left: 4,500 year old Cyprus
Above: Another view of a Song Mountain Daoist Temple









Above:
"Three religions as one," illustrated. An ancient tablet--if you look at it in one way, it's just one monk, but if you look at it another way, it's three.




Left: I love Chinese signs

Henan Pictures

Left: Me on the sleeper train




Left: Shaolin Temple Buddhist monk



























Above Left: Shaolin Temple
Left: Climbing Song Mountain--Daoist Temple

20 July 2007

My week in Henan Province

Perhaps the most important part of HBA, the summer program that I'm attending, is that every students spends the fifth week away from Beijing in one of five other more rural locations, researching a topic of his or her choice. I chose to go to Henan Province and Shaolin Temple to learn about Chinese religion (and, a bit to my surprise, martial arts). Below are my journal entries from the trip.

14 July 2007

Here I am at 少林寺 (Shaolin Temple). Where to begin?

Yesterday we met Luo and Wang Laoshi (teachers) in the hotel lobby at 6pm. They were both very nervous and quickly herded the nine of us students into three cabs, which took us to the train station.

We traveled by sleeper train—a first-time experience for me! Compared to flying economy from California to Beijing, the sleeper train was downright luxurious. I was in one of the top bunks (there were three levels), and had a 2-3 foot by 6-7 foot bed. I slept fairly well despite two nightmares.

When we got to the train station in Dong Feng, a bus met us. We traveled for another two hours or so to here, a “Foreigner’s” hotel within the grounds of Ta Gou Gong Fu school—near Shaolin Si. We arrived here yesterday at about nine a.m. Our hotel is a “Foreigner’s Hotel” on the grounds of a Gong Fu school. The hotel itself is a bit smelly, and we live in grimy rooms on the fourth floor, but all that is compensated for by the beautiful view of terraced fields and mountains just outside the window.

We spent yesterday acclimatizing and visiting Shaolin Temple. The temple itself is spectacular. After visiting the Lama Temple and the Ming Tombs, I was able to appreciate this temple’s abundance of statues, relative cleanliness, and beautiful (if sparse) flora. It seemed not like an ill-kept museum but like an actual holy spot—which is probably largely because it still is a working temple. Living proof of that, a young and charismatic Buddhist monk met us at the door and gave us a three-hour, personal tour; I understood about a third of what he said. Wang Laoshi told me that he’d lived at Shaolin since he was three years old; perhaps this was the reason for his charisma and for the sense of tranquility that he emanated. As he showed us holes in the complex’s stone floor (the product of one monk’s years and years of practicing Gong Fu in the same spot) and basic Gong Fu moves, he yelled violently—and then, an instant later, returned to his more natural facial expression, an easy smile.

By the time that we got back from the temple and ate dinner, everyone was pretty worn out. We met our Gong Fu teacher, Hu Laoshi, and began watching a Jet Li movie. I quickly became drowsy and relocated up to our room to sleep; I knew that the morning was coming quickly.

And that it did. We woke up at 4:45a.m. to meet Hu Laoshi for a jog and a workout. We trotted up the hill to Shaolin and spent an hour or so strength training and learning basic Gong Fu/Tai Chi moves. My favorite Shaolin moment yet occurred this morning. As we were walking back from the temple, we passed two older monks (around 30 years old) and two young monks (8 years old!) walking down the road. We lingered and chatted with them for a few minutes before continuing on our way. The sun was rising, the mist was dissipating, and the feeling of that instant was, well, indescribable.

Now it’s eight o’clock and in half an hour we’re meeting with the Gong Fu school’s president to ask questions. Later this afternoon? More Gong Fu. I’m intimidated as heck, because all the students here have not 6, not 8, but 24-packs (I’m talking about muscles here). I’ll let you know how it goes.

2:14p.m.

Meeting with the school president was interesting and inspiring: I think I’ve found my research topic! I want to write about a concept called “Three Religions as One,” or the intersection of Buddhism, Confucianism, and Daoism. The school president spoke about this at some length; I didn’t understand all that he said, but did bring my recorder this time, so hopefully I can review the speech later tonight.

I also got to speak with an English teacher from the Gong Fu school. It was slightly awkward, since (1.) I spoke Chinese to her and she spoke English to me—neither of our strong points—and (2.) I mostly wanted to know about religion and Gong Fu, neither of which she was particularly well-educated in, but I still learned a lot about the region’s history and her life! I’m surprised to learn that a lot of Chinese in China is taught by locals (I thought Westerners came in to do the job much of the time). But we exchanged e-mail addresses and she told me to write if I have any questions. Seeing as a draft of my report is due in two days, I may just take her up on that.

Luo and Wang Laoshi took us into Dong Feng, a city that feels like a cross between Fresno, California and Kwanakakai, Hawaii, for lunch. We ate at a (I’ll confess, my expectations were surpassed) clean and delicious hot pot restaurant for lunch: each of us got our own pot of boiling water and the table was laden with baskets of clean uncooked beef, lamb, lettuce, potato, tofu, and noodles. Kind of a Chinese-style fondue, but for that our teachers told us it was a Muslim restaurant. Did I mention that the restaurant was actually wonderfully, amazingly air-conditioned and clean?

After lunch, we went to a store to stock up on bottled water and other such necessities. I bought shampoo, fortune cookie-crumbs (“crackers”), and Skittles and although my mouth watered at the place’s baked goods, they looked just sketchy enough that I decided not to risk it.

Now we have an hour (Ah… beautiful!) of rest and I’m doing just that. I’m thinking of all of you who are reading this blog and of the other HBA-ers scattered throughout China. Until tonight…

15 July 2007

After two and half hours yesterday of jumps, squats, and the “five-stance” routine (and, thank goodness, eight hours of sleep), I woke up at 4:45a.m. with aching legs and a knot between my shoulders. Also, the cold that was going around HBA a week ago seems to have finally got me; my throat aches, my ears hurt and I feel tired. Our jog up the hill was somewhat lackluster; it seemed that I wasn’t the only one feeling yesterday’s workout. Luckily, this morning we didn’t practice sprints and jumps but rather Tai Chi. The 26-step routine was difficult—I couldn’t seem to copy Hu Laoshi’s graceful transitions between poses—but, again, the sun was rising and the mountain was beautiful.

We ate breakfast together at the hotel’s cafeteria, and now it’s 8:00a.m. In half an hour, we’re off to more Gong Fu training. Today we’re supposed to learn cartwheels, walkovers, flips, and other such acrobatic feats, but I kind of doubt that I’ll be successfully back-flipping by 11:00a.m. This afternoon we talk with a Daoist scholar. More on that to come.

8:03p.m.

And I’m back! Today’s Gong Fu was pretty intense. On top of yesterday’s soreness, we were thrown in with students who have been here for a year to give us a taste of what “real” training is like. I watched the scrawny-but-muscular Swedish guys hold Matrix-like poses and thought, darn, that just isn’t going to happen today. I proceeded to embarrass myself with low little jumps and kicks that only just reached my waist, and wished that Tim Brown (if you ever read this, Tim, hi!) was part of our team so that we could prove to these Swedish guys that not all Americans are clumsy. The day’s success, though? I successfully cartwheeled! My thought process was, if I can’t even do a stupid cartwheel, I might as well go home, and so I flung myself into space and managed after some airborne flailing to land on my feet!

In the afternoon, as it turned out, we weren’t meeting with a scholar but rather going to the famous Song Shan Temple. The temple was pretty fantastic.

First of all, it was built to honor a mountain in keeping with Daoist reverence of nature. This meshes well with my own “pagan” belief system: I think that nature is certainly worth worshipping. One of the eleven courtyards was flanked by four stone buildings, each representing one of China’s most famous peaks: the North one, the East one, the South one, and the West one. Since we were at Song Shan (the center one), this made a lot of sense.

In another courtyard were four statues that reputedly have healing powers: four tall bronze men that didn’t really look like much. The tour guide told us that the way this “healing” worked was that if, for example, you had a sore neck then you touched one of the statues’ necks and yours would feel better. Our legs aching from this morning’s training, we jokingly patted the nearest statues’ thighs. And (you can believe this or not; I understand if by now you’re thinking, “the girl’s on opium”) it actually worked. It didn’t entirely get rid of my soreness, but whereas even walking up to the statue had hurt before, after touching it I painlessly walked away. I looked at my roommate, Kai Yue, and kind of raised my eyebrows. She did the same. “It works!” I said. “Yeah… that’s weird.” she replied. The “healing” only lasted for about fifteen minutes, and after that our legs returned to their achy state, but whether it was spiritual, psychological, or coincidental, my legs felt better. Go figure.

After leaving the temple, we headed back into Dong Feng for more grocery shopping and dinner. We taxied it back to Ta Gou Gong Fu School and now we’re supposed to turn in a draft of our social study report—the reason for our being here—to the teachers. I still have quite a bit of research that I need to do. I guess I’ll scratch out an outline and fill in the meaty stuff later.

17 July 2007

Hello again! Today, our schedule changed a bit—which, to be honest, I was grateful for. Instead of practicing Gong Fu (interesting but exhausting) we visited the grounds of Song Yang Shu Yuan, an ancient school, and climbed Song Shan (Song Mountain).

Song Yang Shu Yuan topped even yesterday’s Daoist temple. We entered at a gate at the bottom of a hill and slowly made our way to the top; the landscaping and gardening were beautiful. I’ll try to post a few pictures. Inside the school was also a 4,500 year old Cyprus tree, reputed to be China’s oldest.

Our drivers (we’ve befriended two taxi drivers who follow us around to our various stops) met us outside the school and took us to the base of Song Shan. The path up the mountain was remarkably well-kept; the smooth concrete steps were eroded away in only a few places. And yes, they were steps. Stairs. What have you. Another Papa-quality hike!

Actually, after I got over my mild flu symptoms I enjoyed the hike a lot. The trail went through three Daoist temples—each one home to several families. At the first temple, an old man brought out his Gong Fu students and they put on a show for us. Watching skinny, rag-clad ten-year-olds wield heavy weapons impacted me. As the boys ran into their “dorm rooms,” small stone rooms with no electricity, no water, and only a thin mat to sleep on, got their weapons and performed with great intensity, I thought about American ten year olds and the way that they live. I thought about what these Chinese ten-years olds would experience as teenagers (falling in love?), young adults, old ones—and realized that really, I had no idea. It’s strange to think of a world different enough from your own that it’s as though it’s in another universe.

The mountaintop was shrouded in fog—fog so thick that you couldn’t see more than ten or fifteen feet ahead of you. We hiked on, with no idea how close we were to the top, or even if there was a top. Maybe we’d keep climbing on into the clouds indefinitely, as in a dream. But no: we passed a few more huts and the stone steps ended. We followed an orange, muddy trail perhaps 100 feet and suddenly the fog that had been on both sides of and above us, but not below us, was also below us. We took pictures at the top and then (the top is only halfway!) began our descent.

By the time that we got down to the bottom, I wanted to die. When that feeling subsided, I wanted to go back to Beijing. After that passed, I racked my mind desperately for ways to kill (or at least incapacitate) Hu Laoshi… and after a shower and a clean change of clothes, I decided that I’d better suck it up and appreciate the experience.

18 July 2007

Now it’s the next day, and after running, Tai Chi, and breakfast, we have an hour-long break before Gong Fu begins. I’m savoring every minute not spent moving.

3:48p.m.

After half an hour of Gong Fu today, my body said “no.” The cold that I’ve been fighting off all week with high doses of Ibuprofen broke through and simply said “no.” And so I went back to my room and slept.

I’ve been here most of the day—except for a two-hour excursion to Shaolin Temple. I’ve slept for a few hours, and read for a few more. I feel really wimpy, but at the same time have no desire whatsoever to get really sick here in Henan.

19 July 2007

It’s been over a day since I last blogged. I woke up yesterday morning feeling much, much better—well enough to join the morning Tai Chi/running group despite heavy rain.

After wading back through ankle-high orange water, we ate breakfast and boarded a tour bus. Yesterday was not a Gong Fu day, but rather a sightseeing one. Our bus took took us to Luoyong, one of China’s ancient capitals. There, we saw the Longmen Caves and the White Horse Temple.

The Longmen Caves are not really caves, but rather indentations in a rock wall in which thousands of Buddhas are carved. Although it’s by no means spelunking, a few Buddhas are set back far enough that you have to actually walk into a rock-walled “room” to see them. The carvings are impressive in that they are very old and there are a lot of them. Some of the stonework is really intricate! Unfortunately, history has not been good to Longmen: American and European explorers knocked the heads off of most of the normal-sized statues to use as paperweights or to put in museums. Only the largest statues, the ones whose heads would be difficult to knock off, remain intact.

After seeing the caves, we headed into the city of Luoyong for lunch. Our plan was to eat its famous “water meal”—26 courses of soup that are (according to Lonely Planet) served up with the speed of flowing water. Having seen a tributary of the Yellow River near the caves, I’m not sure if this is supposed to mean fast or slow! However, once we got to Luoyong our teachers realized that this meal was beyond our budget… and took us to KFC. Although we all knew that we should be sad about missing the regional speciality, there’s something about a real cup of coffee and a chicken wrap that made the disappointment, well, dissipate. We got back on the bus full, and in good spirits.

白马寺, or the White Horse Temple, was China’s first Buddhist Temple. It got its name because two Indian missionary-types brought Buddhist script and a statue of Buddha from India to China on the backs of two (you guessed it) white horses. The temple was beautiful: the grounds were flat and lush, which differentiated it from Shaolin and other mountain temples. We walked around for an hour or two, and then took our bus back to Dong Feng, where we celebrated our last night here.

We ate a restaurant and played a few very entertaining games of “Psychiatrist” (心里学家). My personal favorite moment was Jin You (who was at the time the “psychiatrist”) drilling Luo Laoshi: Jin You asked, “Where are you from?” Luo Laoshi crossed his arms and lied, “Taiwan.” Where are you from? Arms still crossed. “Taiwan!” Where are you from? Luo Laoshi uncrossed his arms. “China.” We all nodded in agreement. Jin You’s face looked utterly confused and the rest of the table erupted in laughter. After we finished dinner, we went to a karaoke bar next door and rented out a room. We struggled through the traditional-character subtitles and the tunes of Chinese songs we didn’t know, yet (perhaps thanks to the freely-flowing 啤酒) still managed to make a night of it. At eleven or so, we piled into our taxis and came home—where I slept soundly until now, the next morning, at 6:30a.m. No early morning workout today… just three hours of Gong Fu, and then back to Beijing!

I can’t wait to drink a real latte, or to see Wen Jun. I’m looking forward to hearing about the other students’ trip to Inner Mongolia.

One last thought:

If you want to know more about what my experience was like, follow this recipe:
1. Read Peter Hessler's book "Oracle Bones." Excellent excellent excellent.
2. Watch the scene from the Disney movie "Mulan" in which the soldier-recruits sing the song "Be a Man." (Yes, Hu Laoshi was that attractive.)
3. Watch the older Jet Li movie "Shaolin Si"--probably "Shaolin Temple" in English. Be prepared for some gore.